Runaway World

The Conference Call

       Two hours later, panting with exertion but still grinning with delight, father and son returned to the hab-rover.

     They waited in the airlock for the specks of nitrogen ice covering their suits to melt and evaporate and for the heaters to warm the air, and then the inner door opened to allow them into the outfitting room. Andrew helped his son out of his suit, then began taking off his own while David wiped the sweat from his body with a damp towel. "How was the suit?" his mother asked, coming over to help him.

     "A bit baggy," the boy replied. "It felt loose on my arms and legs."

     "You'll grow into it," Susan replied. She reached out to grab a table to steady herself as the rover lurched back into motion, driven by James, David's older brother. The fourteen year old took the vehicle in a large circle until it was facing back the way they had come, then drove off back to the place from which the life hutch's distress signal had taken them.

     "And take care of it," his father warned him as he stripped the suit's heated underlayer from his hips and legs. "If it's still in good condition we can sell it on when you need a bigger one. Recoup some of the cost."

     "I know," said the boy as he pulled on a pair of briefs. "Can I go outside again when we get back to the dig site?"

     "We'll see," said Andrew evasively. "I'll be too busy to look after you most of the time."

     "The other families will be able to keep an eye on him," Susan told him. "You know he needs to familiarise himself with the surface. If some accident forces him outside in a surface suit and he makes some basic mistake because he's not familiar enough... The more he goes out, the safer he'll be."

     "I know," her husband replied. "It's just that... After Henry Willow..."

     "Nico Willow tried to save money by buying a sub-standard suit."

     "I know that. The point I'm trying to make is that, on the surface, the slightest little thing can kill you. Maybe we should have left the kids in the city..."

     "No!" cried David indignantly as he buttoned up the front of his one piece coverall, the same simple garment they all wore while in the comfort and safety of the inside whether it was the city, one of the smaller surrounding communities or a hab-rover. David's was decorated with cowboys riding horses while they chased herds of cows. A scene from centuries past. "I'll be careful! I promise!"

     "I know you will," Andrew replied as he also got dressed. "But it's not just dangerous. The work we're doing is boring, for the most part. I worry that some of the other children will get bored, decide to go looking for adventure and persuade you to go with them."

     "I won't," David promised him, staring up at his father with his large hazel eyes. "I promise. I just want to see the surface. To see the sky."

     "Well, like I said, we'll see," Andrew did up the last buttons and slipped a pair of plimsolls onto his feet. "There's no rush. We're probably going to be out here for a good couple of months yet. The ice doesn't give up its treasures easily."

     He left the outfitting room before his wife and son could continue the persuasion and made his way forward to the cockpit. His oldest son, James, was sitting in the pilot's chair but he moved across to the co-pilot's position as his father appeared in the doorway behind him. "How we doing?" asked Andrew.

     The view outside the single, large cockpit window was blackness broken only by a long oval of white where the rover's headlights were reflected from the nitrogen ice. A trail of scratched up ice fragments led away in front of them. Their own wheel tracks that they were now retracing, standing out starkly from the smooth, unbroken icy surface that stretched away on either side. Andrew expected the first part of the return trip to be uneventful since they hadn't encountered any surprises on their way out. Any problems would come the next day.